


To Enjoy a Little Game

by aj_linguistik



Series: October Prompt Challenge [6]
Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga), ソードアート・オンライン - 川原礫 | Sword Art Online - Kawahara Reki
Genre: AI Yuna, Board Games, F/M, Fluff, October Prompt Challenge, One Shot, Post Ordinal Scale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26858272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aj_linguistik/pseuds/aj_linguistik
Summary: Eiji has accepted that things could have turned out a lot worse after the Ordinal Scale incident. He's free to spend his time with Yuna, and even though she doesn't have their old memories, he can try to make new ones. So, why not try to start by playing a simple board game?
Relationships: Nochizawa Eiji | Nautilus | Eiji/Shigemura Yuuna | Yuna
Series: October Prompt Challenge [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949194
Kudos: 9





	To Enjoy a Little Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [disasterbiKirito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disasterbiKirito/gifts).



> A/N: Day 6 is here! Today's selected pair was Eiji and Yuuna, specifically the A.I. version of her from the movie. The prompt was playing a game. It took me a hot minute to think of which game, so I wound up with one I know verus one that I thought might be more intersting. Hopefully I still managed to make it cute!

The trouble with entertaining an A.I. was that they picked up things very quickly. Unlike a human, Yuna would learn to do something and then have it mastered fairly quickly. It was a bit of an amusing reminder that her programming was just that—programming. He’d been lucky enough to obtain this version of her after the plan to recreate Shigemura Yuuna from the memories of SAO survivors had failed. He’d been lucky in a lot of ways, if he really thought about it. The people who should have hated him most didn’t lash out at him, and now, he was free to live his life with Yuna without being bothered.

He’d given VRMMOs a shot again, for one. Diving into ALO felt strange at first. He remembered the way his full-dive non-conformity had made him freeze up when he was fearful. It took him a bit to overcome the fear of death in this virtual world. Unlike Ordinal Scale, he had no tangible reassurance that when his HP hit zero, he would remain alive and come back. He’d had to die a few times before it started to be less intimidating. But he’d worked hard, earned enough yrd to purchase a player home, and now he and Yuna could be together in peace in this fantasy world.

While looking through some options, Eiji discovered that there were ways to play some board and card games within ALO. He thought that he’d try and give it a try, seeing as Yuna was still growing and learning as an A.I., so he purchased a game board and when he got back to the player home, he went about setting it up on their kitchen table. Yuna saw him placing a board and pieces down on the table and came over to him, tilting her head in an exaggerated way as she observed his actions.

“What’s this?” she asked.

It was cute how lifelike she was. She’d never give someone the idea that she wasn’t a player unless they really probed her to get out something that sounded more computer-like. She differed from NPCs in that her linguistic capabilities were more than just set phrases—she could carry on a conversation with him. While she might never have the memories of the Yuuna who died in SAO, she at the very least acted like her to a degree and Eiji knew he’d be able to make new memories with her here in ALO.

“It’s a board game people in the real world play,” he said, carefully setting each piece in place. “I thought maybe I could teach you how to play it. If you’re interested.”

She hummed and watched him as he finished setting up the board.

“Is it fun?” she asked.

He laughed.

“You’ll only know if you try it for yourself,” he told her. “Some people like it, and other people don’t. It’s up to the individual whether or not they like it.”

She hummed again. He was still trying to get her to understand this concept of liking things. She knew she liked to sing, but hadn’t she also been programmed to like singing, just like Yuuna? He wanted to see if she could understand liking and disliking eventually. It was one of those things that still reminded him that she was an A.I. and not a recreation. He sat down on one side of the board and leaned on the table on his elbows.

“Would you like to see if you like it?” he said.

Yuna gave him a funny look for a moment, but she smiled and sat down across from him.

“Yes, let’s try it, Ei-kun!” she said.

She held up her fists in front of her as she flashed him a cute smile. He couldn’t help but smile at how adorable she was. She hummed again and looked over the board at the pieces. She leaned forward eagerly, apparently ready to learn this new game.

“So, what is it called?” she asked.

Eiji chuckled.

“We call it checkers,” he said.

She tilted her head.

“What does ‘checkers’ mean?” she asked.

He frowned and blinked down at the board.

“I suppose it comes from the patter on the board,” he said, pointing to the alternating black and white spaces on the board. “It looks a lot like the checkered pattern that you sometimes see on clothing or flags for racing cars.”

Her mouth opened into a small ‘o’ as she nodded.

“I see!” she said. “And how do we play checkers?”

He pointed to her side of the board.

“You’re the red pieces,” he said. “And I’m the black ones. Remember that you can only move your pieces. Got it so far?”

She nodded enthusiastically.

“I’m the red, and Ei-kun’s the black!” she repeated. “Got it!”

He had to resist the urge to laugh. It was difficult to take his mind off of how cute she was. How long had it been since he’d been able to just enjoy Yuuna’s laugh? With everything that had happened, he’d realized he’d spent way too much time wallowing in his grief. This outcome, though not quite what he’d originally imagined from working with Dr. Shigemura, was finally enough for him. He could be happy. This was the way.

“So, you’ll notice that the pieces are on different colored squares,” he said.

She glanced around the board for a moment.

“Yeah,” she said. “They are all on the black squares, and none of them are on the white ones.”

He nodded.

“That’s right,” he said. “We can only move our pieces one square at a time on this color. So, I can only move a piece diagonally on the black squares like this.”

He picked up one of his pieces and demonstrated the move for her.

“I see,” she said.

He then pointed to the opposite side of the board.

“The goal is to get from one side to the other,” he said. “Once we get to the other side, we can flip the pieces over.”

He flipped his piece, and she let out a gasp.

“There’s a little crown on top!” she said.

Eiji laughed.

“Yeah, there is,” he said. “But when we do this, we have to put a second piece on top of it. That’s called ‘kinging.’”

She frowned and tilted her head.

“So, where does the other piece come from?” she asked.

He smiled.

“So, as we cross the board, we can choose to hop over the other person’s pieces,” he said.

He took some time to set up an example where her pieces could hop over his. He then moved the pieces to demonstrate the move as he spoke.

“If you hop over a piece like this, then that piece gets taken off of the board,” he said. “You then would put the piece you hopped over beside you on the table, and when I get to the end and ask you to king me, you place one of those pieces on top of the one I flipped over.”

She hummed in understanding and nodded her head.

“And what happens if someone hops over all of your pieces?” she asked.

He chuckled.

“In that case, you would lose,” he said. “The goal is to either capture all of your opponent’s pieces or corner them so that they can’t move anymore without losing them.”

For a moment, she seemed a tad bit confused, but she nodded and set the pieces in front of her back to where they started.

“And why do we need the kings then?” she asked.

He put his pieces back as well.

“The kings can go the opposite direction, for one,” he said. “When it’s just the one piece, it can only go forwards. But a king can go anywhere. And they can also move an unlimited amount of times so long as they don’t run into another piece of the same color.”

At this, her eyes sparkled with excitement. Maybe she would really enjoy this game.

“Ooooh,” she said. “Who starts?”

Technically, there was a rule for that, but Eiji didn’t feel it was necessary to tell her that part. He would always insist that she start. It wasn’t so much a chivalry thing as it was a Yuna thing. He didn’t want to give her a disadvantage when he was the one who’d grown up playing this game, not her. He waved his hand over to her.

“You start,” he said.

She put a finger to her mouth and looked down at her pieces, clearly conflicted as to which one to move. Maybe he should have started to help her realize that the first piece didn’t matter so much. Nevertheless, he wasn’t going to take it back now—the way she scrunched up her face as she thought was too adorable to pass up this opportunity. She hummed a song to herself as she thought, rocking back and forth to it as she hummed. Finally, she selected a piece and pushed it forward onto a new space.

“Your turn, Ei-kun!” she said cheerily.

The corner of his mouth turned up into a grin. He didn’t want to put on as much of a show as her when moving the pieces, but he paused for a moment, pretending to think, before he reached down and moved one of his own. He wouldn’t need to think until their pieces were close enough to start jumping over.

She took just as long of a time moving her next piece as she had her first. He wondered if that was her way of implying that she was human by thinking. Realistically, checkers was a much faster game, but her programming was telling her to be more human-like. She was opting for a behavior that she presumed to be more natural to a human by waiting for a moment and thinking out her moves. She likely already had an idea of where she wanted to move the piece, he figured.

As they went back and forth, he finally got to the interesting part, where they could jump one another’s pieces and take them. He managed to steal one of hers first, which resulted in a cute little pout from her as she lamented the stolen checkers piece. She told him that she’d take it back when she “queened” her piece. Her automatic changing of the terminology based on her gender also made him laugh. As advanced as her programming was, it was moments like these where he really appreciated its gaps. She made an assumption that the piece title changed with gender—and while it didn’t, it was definitely cute that she thought that’s how it went.

Soon after, Yuna started to get bold and start snatching up his pieces. It was a quick turnover. He thought he’d have the upper hand here, but it was slowly turning into Yuna’s one-sided takeover of the board. She managed to be the first one to get “queened” as she put it, which resulted in him trying to hide his dumbfounded face. He should have been prepared for an A.I. to pick up a game quickly.

“I told you I’d take that first piece back, Ei-kun!” she said, her voice teasing.

He couldn’t even be upset. She was too damn cute.

“Yeah, you kept your word,” he said. “But now, I’m going to have to step up my game here. I can’t lose so easily to a new player!”

She giggled.

“You’re on!” she said.

The game picked up from there. Perhaps they were both a little too into the competition now. Her energy and enthusiasm certainly contributed to his. He wasn’t sure that he’d normally get so competitive when playing a game as simple and casual as checkers, but the way she put her all into outsmarting him made him feel like he had to match her competitive energy. The pair’s hands darted around the board, leaping over pieces and tossing captured ones to the side. Eiji managed to score the first stolen “queen” piece; Yuna responded by taking two of his.

By the time they reached the end of the game, Eiji couldn’t even be mad that Yuna had him cornered on the right side of the board in his own home territory. She had her elbows on the table and her head resting in her arms. She smiled sweetly over to him, giving him the most innocent expression she could muster.

“Do I win?” she asked.

Eiji put both hands up in mock surrender.

“The queen wins,” he said, laughing. “Good game.”

She giggled.

“Good game!” she echoed. “Let’s play that again! That was fun!”

He smiled and nodded. It looked like he’d finally gotten her to understand what it meant to enjoy something other than singing. As she started to arrange the pieces on the board to set up for a new game, he sighed and watched her with a satisfied look on his face.

“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s do that.”


End file.
